A(R)Talk 02: Frederick Kiesler: From the Theater to Galaxies – Reaching into Space

About the Event 

Recognized as one of the important avant-garde artists of the 20th Century with roots in Europe and the United States of America, Frederick Kiesler (1890 – 1965, born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich Kiesler) closely associated with key members of De Stijl, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop-Art. He exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art, New York and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; was represented by two of the most powerful American art dealers of the postwar era, Sidney Janis and Leo Castelli, and was subject of countless magazine and newspaper articles. As a pioneering multi-disciplinary artist, he never belonged to one movement and explored various artforms simultaneously, ranging from architecture, theater and furniture design to sculpture, painting, and expansive installations.

In their brief presentations and proceeding conversation, which will allow for a Q & A segment with the audience, Abraham Thomas and Stephanie Buhmann will discuss some of Kiesler’s radical ideas and how they manifested in his Model for the Universal Theater for Woodstock, New York (1931), currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a series of fragmented paintings from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, which Kiesler himself had coined Galaxies, and which will be featured in a major retrospective of the artist’s paintings and sculptures at Kunsthaus Zug, Switzerland, in 2024.

About the Panelists

Abraham Thomas is the Daniel Brodsky Curator of Modern Architecture, Design, and Decorative Arts in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.  He is responsible for the broad fields of modern architecture, design, and decorative arts, as well as for building and interpreting The Met’s collection. He is the curator of this year’s Roof Garden commission at The Met, by Lauren Halsey, and also curated the collections exhibition, “Community: The Architecture of Civic Space and Private Domains”, featuring the Museum’s recent acquisition of the model for Kiesler’s Woodstock Theater project (on view until October 15^th, in the Met’s Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, The Gioconda and Joseph King Gallery, south mezzanine, Gallery 916). Prior to that, Thomas has worked at the Smithsonian Institution, first as the Fleur and Charles Bresler Curator-in-Charge of the Renwick Gallery, and most recently as Senior Curator at the Arts & Industries Building, in Washington, D.C. Before coming to the United States, he was Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum and Curator of Designs at the Victoria and Albert Museum, from 2005 to 2013, where he was responsible for the V&A’s Architecture Gallery and its strategic partnership with the Royal Institute of British Architects. Thomas has published and lectured extensively on architecture, decorative arts, craft, graphic design and photography. Image Credits: Lewis Bush

Dr. Stephanie Buhmann is the Head of Visual Art, Architecture & Design at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York. From 2010 to 2022, she served as Director of the Estate of Frederick Kiesler New York. Published in 2023, Buhmann’s monograph Frederick Kiesler: Galaxies (The Green Box, Berlin) provides the first in-depth analysis of this extensive body of work, which comprises both single unit compositions and multi-paneled constellations that blur the line between painting, sculpture, and installation when spanning walls, floor and ceiling. Besides curating dozens of exhibitions, including What Should I Be Afraid of? Roma Artist Ceija Stojka currently at the ACFNY, Buhmann has published extensively on modern and contemporary art. In 2013 she conceived of an ongoing Studio Conversations series, focused on women of different generations working in diverse media. She currently works on a publication on Ceija Stojka (Hirmer, 2023) together with her co-curators Dr. Lorely French and Carina Kurta. Image Credits: Marcin Muchalsky